If Obama guts NASA, the Open Luna Foundation looks bright

Feb 05, 2010, 23:32 (2 Talkback[s])

[ Thanks to Julie188 for this link. ]

"As part of the administration’s new 3.8 trillion budget (that is with a T, not a B guys. Really big number.), a radical change in NASA’s mission is proposed. If President Obama has his way, NASA will stop being the operator and builder of our space vehicles and program. The US space program will be placed in the hands of private industry. The government will try to steer the private space industry with grants and technology development projects. This could be a great environment and opportunity for an open source space program.

"Of course this is a huge departure for the NASA we have known. For the past 50 years NASA has been the designer, builder and operator of our space program. The space race and the race to the Moon were national goals to strive for. In later years, NASA’s mission became more cooperative with other world powers in projects such as the International Space Station and missions to the planets. Then President George W. Bush announced a return to the Moon by 2020. Many experts said it was pie in the sky and would never happen in that time frame, but nevertheless we spent almost 9 billion dollars to date on this mission. Now if the Obama administration has their way we are scrapping it. As a child of the Apollo program, I am dismayed that we can’t even come close to accomplishing something that we were able to do 40 years ago. Have we fallen that far?"

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